


Unstuck from Time and Gravity

by thatsrightdollface



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Light Angst, The Day That Wasn't, Time - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 20:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18080705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: From the moon to an airplane, headed somewhere Luther hadn't believed he'd really go.Also, some thoughts on time.





	Unstuck from Time and Gravity

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!!! Thank you so much for reading this, if you do -- I really hope you enjoy it. :D I'm sorry for any and all mistakes I might've made. 
> 
> I feel like there's something else I should say here, but I am nooooot sure what it is. If I think of something, I'll be back!!!

* 1\. (We’re Gonna Be Here a While)

Day and night got tangled together so often, on the moon... A month of light, pretty much, and then a month of dark. Luther Hargreeves was reasonably used to it. If he didn’t stop to check his clocks – blinking away like ordinary earth clocks, as if they didn’t realize anything funny was going on at all – sometimes it was almost like time had stopped. Like he’d stepped outside of those steady numbers, outside of hours and routines that had once felt like unquestionable parts of life.  Drifting alone.

(Well.  Even more alone than when no one had been there to go through those routines with him, back on earth. Even more alone than when he’d wondered whether he should bother getting dressed, bother washing his hair or ringing the cheerful little bell on his bike if there was no one around to hear it...  No one around to crash into, anyway, riding around the house.  It was one thing to feel left-behind in a rattling manor where the lights kept crackling out above him, wearing his life like a t-shirt that didn’t fit right anymore.  This was further away than that.)

There was overwhelming star-splattered darkness around, now, and dust lying still as grave dirt. Luther had written about that, actually, on the anniversary of his brother Ben’s death one year – comparing the sprawling moon to a graveyard he hadn’t seen in a long time, with all the rocks like headstones he never thought to read back then.  He decided not to send any of that to his father, though.  It might’ve just made everyone feel worse, even if writing it all out had felt a little like driving into town with flowers.

That anniversary passed, and then another.  Allison’s wedding anniversary came and went, just like the day of the accident where Luther had lost his original human hands, original human skin.  Luther spoke aloud sometimes just to hear a voice, even if it was his own sounding small and tired.  _Being on the moon was amazing._   Neutralizing threats in the dark of space was exactly what he – Spaceboy, Number One of the Umbrella Academy – had been trained for.

But when the wonder dripped away, when the silence seeped in and no threats came... When years passed...

Okay.

Luther was okay.

He made a point of waking up to an alarm clock, anyway, as if he might’ve had scheduled appointments to get to. As if anyone would have noticed Luther falling away from time. He had asked his father to send him a watch that could fit around his huge, not-entirely-human wrist without digging into his skin, but when no watch arrived he made one of his own from a clock that had used to be propped up in his narrow kitchen-ish area, by the plant on his desk.

A threat could come at any time, after all, and Luther figured he should be awake for it.  He had imagined something similar hanging around his family’s old house as the last one left – whenever there was a mission, he had to be ready. Maybe it actually  _mattered_  that he sent his dad soil samples and temperature readings at the same general time whenever he checked in, too? Maybe he just needed to take a deep breath and remember why he was here. A moment to remember that he still hadn’t fallen out of his old life’s orbit, no matter how things might feel, sometimes.

Nine-thirty AM, Pacific Standard Time. If Allison was still living around Hollywood, maybe she’d be drinking coffee now... Closing her eyes against the sun out her window.  Luther imagined her wearing comfortable socks and without her makeup on yet.  Maybe Patrick had eaten breakfast with her; maybe she would be headed to some sort of movie shoot soon enough.  What time did those generally start, anyway?

Noon, Pacific Standard Time. Maybe it was a hot day down in the real world, and palm trees were swaying along roads that would burn a person’s feet.  Allison might have driven off-set for lunch with some friends - maybe she made them laugh and squeezed their shoulders gently when they were sad.  Luther always imagined Allison with a lot of friends, gathering people to her like a campfire in the cold, howling woods.

Luther was always hungry, lately. He imagined what sort of things Allison might be getting to eat maybe a little too often. His dad hadn’t sent new rations up in a long time, and wondering  _why_  stung so much worse than even the tightest watch around his wrist. Luther hadn’t admitted it to himself in so many words, yet.

Sometimes his tether to the earth felt flimsy and cold, like reminding himself to smile even when nobody could see.  When it didn’t matter whether Luther flinched, or snickered, or raised his eyebrows in that playful way Allison used to tell him was charming.  Other times it felt almost like Allison was standing next to him, telling him about her day.  Luther wasn’t alone, not all the time. Not completely.  Allison wouldn’t mind, he didn’t think.  She had waved and called “Hi Luther!” to him on TV at her first few movie award ceremony things…  She had sent him pictures of her baby daughter, addressed specifically to him even though of course they came by his whole family’s house.  It was something.  Luther imagined he would’ve always carried Allison with him, in some way, coming here.  Or, y’know.  Going anywhere, to tell you the truth.

Six-fifteen PM.

Eleven-thirty at night.

And then...

Good morning, again. Again and again and again.

Allison might be drinking that coffee again, soon, Luther told himself, maybe. Or herbal tea, or the kind of sugary juice their dad wouldn’t let Mom buy. She might be watching the rain out her window the same way Luther watched careening stars. It didn’t rain much in California though, huh?  Yeah, Luther had heard not.  He’d been so many places, but never out there, yet. It would’ve been weird, showing up without an invitation.

  


* 2\. (Let’s Try This Again)

That invitation came on earth, it turned out, in a way Luther would’ve never expected it.  The world was ending, see.  Everything in the real world — in real life? — happened so, so quickly, it was hard to keep connected, sometimes.  Hard to clear his throat and make a plan; hard not to feel even further away than ever.

At least things on the moon had been simple — Luther had learned to maintain his own reasons for waking up, his own kind of gravity.  Once he got back to earth for his father’s funeral, uh...  Well.  Maybe earth life was nothing but surprises and misunderstandings, now, people crashing into each other like comets consumed by their own trajectory.

Trying to scrape together comebacks, staring down Diego’s challenging, sarcastic eyes again... Trying to understand whatever Five’s scribbles on the wall meant — whatever this whole business was about time-jumping super assassins and an apocalypse screaming to meet them just around the corner.  It was all so much.  Too much, too fast.  And that wasn’t even considering what Luther knew about his dad, now, and the moon mission, and all those envelopes full of unstudied samples, unread poetry.  Luther might as well have been writing mission updates to the moon itself, scribbling then out and then burying them in cold grey sand for all time.

That wasn’t even considering Luther’s first serious fight in over four years, either; that wasn’t even considering what everyone...   _What Allison_...  Had seen, now.

(Luther would’ve been lying if he said he’d never imagined telling Allison about his accident, maybe in a raw furious voice, maybe quiet and slow and hopeful that she would understand he was the same man somewhere underneath it all.  Same man, inside. That wasn’t the way it happened, in the real world.  That wasn’t how anything came together, hurtling so fast Luther could barely feel real.

Maybe it would’ve been easier if Allison had screamed, when Luther stood.  When he shuffled off his coat and the chandelier with it, dripping crystal and splintered glass bright like sun catching against hills on the moon.  A scream could’ve gotten it all over with, anyway.

Luther told himself that, but he didn’t actually believe it.  Allison had been so still, face unreadable, and then when she tried to reach for him later he kept flinching away.  Imagining distance and disappointment that never actually came, from her; tasting shame and hurt like bile in the back of his throat.)

It was hard to feel that way, once the invitation came, of course.  It could take months and months, speechless days tumbling after each other for anything to change on the moon.  Now, though...

Now, Luther thought Allison might shoot him a sharp frown if he suggested she could want to scream at all,  _ever_ , seeing him stand.  Knowing he was alive, whatever he looked like underneath his coat, whatever parts of his life he’d kept quiet from her. It felt funny to think she wouldn’t be able to see him as himself, anymore.  It felt sort of impossible, actually, after she’d taken his hand and danced with him.  Falling out of time together.

Nine-thirty AM, and Luther had learned Allison was flying home to California, going to see her daughter if the world really  _was_  ending.  So much had come unstuck in her life — the life he’d imagined, sure, but never really known...  (He’d learned about her wedding ring from a magazine article Klaus dropped by the house one day, after all.)  It made a sad kind of sense, even if it felt like such a rushed goodbye, with too much unsaid.  Too much Luther didn’t know how to say.

Six-fifteen, and the rest of Luther’s world had unraveled.  He was sitting hollow as the space between stars in a pile of his own mission reports, wondering what anything meant.  What he even  _could_  mean, now.

The world was ending, and Allison hadn’t been able to get a flight until late; she took Luther out into the real world and bought hotdogs. She still remembered the way he liked them — which was the kind of surprise that made Luther duck his head and smile despite himself — and she listened, and she laughed watching him eat.  Watching him feel at home in his own self for a second, forgetting to think about what time it was, or whether he had a purpose, or...  Well.  Kind of anything his dad would’ve called  _useful_  at all.

Honestly?  It had never felt real to Luther that Allison might’ve been thinking of him throughout her days, too. Imagining him, impossibly, like her own emotional gravity.  Maybe she meant it when she said she’d compared every man she ever met to him, carrying him with her wherever she went, too.

Nine-thirty AM, and Luther might’ve been hunched over himself in some sort of moon-lab, mixing chemicals or studying squirming samples or...  Something he’d never actually needed to do. You know.

Noon, and all the stars would have been hanging low over the moon base and flickering like the hanging lights above that fort Allison had made for him so long ago.  Maybe she had imagined Luther looking up at them and thinking about her, about the sodas they’d never managed to drink.

Allison’s laughter had been like coming home, for real this time.  Dancing with Allison — kissing Allison, and, dang, more than that,  _being kissed_  — had made all the stars feel like those hanging lights, too.  Had made the whole world feel changed, and then before he knew it Luther was on his way to the airport.

Luther hadn’t needed time or a mission to feel connected, before.  Of course not.  But he needed  _some_  sense of time now, or he and Allison would miss their flight completely.

  


* 3\. (Ordering Room Service at the End of the World)

They grabbed Luther’s plane ticket pretty last minute — as in, Allison had forked over a surprising amount of money to get him a seat next to her in first class, subtly situated with as much space as she could get for his legs, for his shoulders.  They wove through the airport crowds with Allison leading him by his arm, smiling sadly, softly over her shoulder every now and then as if checking back to make sure Luther was still there.

They watched a movie on one of the little screens in the back of the chairs in front of them, sharing headphones from somewhere inside Allison’s purse.  When Luther suggested they watch one of  _her_  films, Allison laughed and ducked her head.  Said, “No.  Geez.  No thank you.”  She wanted to watch something new, together.  She wanted him to scroll around and see what caught his eye.  So many movies had come out, since he’d been gone.

Luther’s fingers hesitated over a new space adventure film, uncertain, and Allison snickered.  Muttered “ _Spaceboy_...!” down into her iced coffee.  They ended up watching a reboot of something old and funny they’d liked when they were kids, though.  Tell you what, the thing wasn’t half bad.

When the movie was over, Allison rested her cheek against Luther’s coat sleeve and started telling him about Claire.  What to expect when they got to California; what things had been like with Patrick for a while now; what her life had  _really_  been like from day to day to day.  Luther brushed airplane pretzel crumbs off his coat...  He cleared his throat and murmured things he hoped were comforting.  He was there.  Allison wasn’t alone, would never have to face something like this alone again if she didn’t want to.  They could handle whatever came next — they’d sort of have to, if it was the end of the world, and all.

Luther thought she got the idea.  He could see the moon through the plane window before they landed, so still and unchanging, far-off and timeless.  Allison was wearing the necklace he’d gotten her again, now — gotten her when they were children, when he hadn’t thought they could fall apart at all.  That necklace looked brighter, from here, catching in the artificial light like a little bit of sun.

Nine-thirty AM, and Luther had fallen asleep in the passenger’s seat of a rental car that smelled so sharp and plastic he kept subconsciously wrinkling his nose. Driving into Hollywood at Allison’s side.  She’d picked up breakfast sandwiches for him at a drive-through when the world was still dark; she’d made sure her makeup was perfect in the car mirror, parked just outside her own old neighborhood.  Wanted Claire to see her mom looking the way she remembered her, even when the end came, she said.

Luther had squeezed Allison’s arm, half asleep and grinning up at her with his eyes closed.  He’d muttered, “Looks great,” and she’d smoothed down the collar of his coat.  The last time he’d woken up with Allison sitting next to him, Luther had shaken her hand away and curled over into himself.

Noon, and Luther had met Claire, finally, finally.  He’d also checked himself and Allison into a hotel nearby, gotten into an argument of sorts with Patrick — a whole separate story, let’s be honest — and squeezed Allison’s hand as confidently as he could heading up the walkway to her own lost front door.

Six-fifteen PM.

Eleven-thirty at night.

By the time Luther realized maybe,  _maybe_  the world wasn’t going to end after all, Allison was flopped on a hotel chair next to him and talking to Vanya on the phone. Trying to reassure her, it sounded like.  The stars were smothered under a bruised heavy pollution cloud, out there, and Luther hadn’t thought about falling out of time nearly all day.  Claire had called him “Spaceboy” so many times he’d started to remember what that name used to mean to him.

Allison had watched Luther crouching down to talk with her daughter, careful and quiet and glancing up at her for small-talk guidance every now and then. He knew she was smiling, even after she folded that hand over her smoothed-on lipstick when she started to cry.  She’d assured him they were the best kind of tears a person could expect at the end of the world.

But if the world  _wasn’t_  ending...?

The hours would keep on coming, then, and this earth Luther was a part of now felt so impossibly new.


End file.
